Starless

by Jacqueline Carey

  But sometimes … sometimes in the heat of the moment I was able to forget, and that sense would fill me, a sense like a wind rising from the soles of my feet, spiraling through me to the tips of my fingers.

  And bit by bit, the spark was nurtured into a flame, albeit a small one. At those times when I was able to channel Pahrkun’s wind, I began to see what Vironesh meant about the spaces between. Brother Saan’s counsel notwithstanding, as warriors, we trained our bodies to react quicker than thought in battle; but we were human and imperfect. One motion did not always blend seamlessly into the next.

  Sometimes there were missteps.

  Sometimes there were misjudgments.

  It could be something as significant as wrongly anticipating an opponent’s next maneuver; it could be something as small and simple as misgauging an opponent’s angle of attack by a few degrees.

  And there were spaces in between those things, spaces into which one could flow like the wind.

  This, I began to see.

  It set me apart from the rest of the brotherhood, which was a thing I regretted. In the depths of winter that first year, there was a revolt led by Brother Hakan, a dozen of the younger brothers complaining in an aggrieved manner that Vironesh was withholding valuable secrets, demanding that they be allowed to train with him in the same fashion. Brother Yarit heard them out and met privately with Vironesh, urging him to meet their demands.

  To my surprise, Vironesh agreed.

  It was to no avail, a thing he had known. None of them were able to channel Pahrkun’s wind or even understand what it meant to do so.

  None of them had caught a hawk’s feather in an infant fist.

  None of them were shadows.

  “What makes you so damned special, Khai?” Brother Hakan spat at me after a failed attempt. “Why you?”

  “Brother…” I spread my hands helplessly. “Nothing. I was born at the right moment. I cannot say why Pahrkun chose me.”

  Angry tears glittered in his eyes. “It’s not fair!”

  “Life is unfair, young brother,” Vironesh said impassively. “But if you think to envy Khai, you are a fool.”

  Such dour pronouncements were as close as Vironesh came to speaking of the pain of his loss, though it was obvious to all that he carried it inside him like a stone. My hope that he would share insights with me on what it was like to be a shadow had proved a vain one thus far; he spoke only in the most general of terms, never mentioning Prince Kazaran by name. Brother Yarit cautioned me to be patient, and I reluctantly obeyed.

  My progress seemed to please Vironesh, insofar as anything pleased the man. When his fierce battle-grin emerged in the midst of a training session, I knew I might take pride in my efforts. I no longer had the sense that he disliked me, but I could not say that I had the sense that he harbored any fondness for me, either. Having gone for decades without allowing himself to feel, Vironesh seemed determined to avoid any emotional attachment to another living being.

  It made me lonely.

  Being the only child in a brotherhood of grown men had never troubled me before; it was all I had ever known. But now I was three times set apart from the brotherhood. I was young. I was bhazim. And the further I progressed in my training with Vironesh, the further apart I grew from the others, a solitary young warrior learning a skill that was not afforded to my companions.

  The more proficient I became, the more evident it grew; not only in sparring matches, but in some of the arts of the Shahalim Clan in which Brother Yarit continued to train us. When I was able to channel Pahrkun’s wind, I could see the spaces between attention and distraction so clearly, I was able to slip unnoticed by an observer or pick a pocket so deftly that even Brother Yarit had to own himself impressed. I was grateful for his praise; and yet, it drove home the point that I was at an ever-increasing remove from the brotherhood.

  Were it not for that, I cannot say whether I would have made the choice I did when the inevitable happened and my body betrayed me.

  I was some months past my thirteenth birthday when it began. Shallow swellings of soft useless flesh emerged on my narrow, sturdy chest.

  I hated it.

  I hated them.

  Bhazim, bhazim, bhazim. The word from which I could not flee, the thing I did not want to be. An honorary boy, yes. But I was unable to deny the unsaid truth beneath it: My body was a girl’s.

  No one commented, but I saw in Brother Yarit’s shrewd, sympathetic gaze that he noticed and knew.

  I took to winding a length of cloth around my chest, binding my budding breasts so that they lay as flat as possible. As though rebelling against my attempts at constriction, my narrow hips widened.

  Not a great deal, in truth; later, when I knew more about men and women and the ways of the world, I would understand that the exhaustive training I had undergone from a young age kept my body far more lean and muscular than most. But I did not know that, then. I only knew that the betrayal had begun, setting me yet further apart from my brethren.

  Alone at night in my chamber, I would take the Teardrop from its wooden box and contemplate it, its deep honey-gold light illuminating the creases and callused ridges of my palm. According to Brother Yarit, the Lone Tree of the Barren Isle was one of the children of heaven, but if it had a name, no one knew it.

  A single drop of resin every hundred years, and five hundred more for it to petrify; its worth, I thought, must be incalculable. Were it to be sewn into my flesh, that would be yet another way in which I was different. No one else in the brotherhood would have a gem worth a prince’s ransom hidden beneath their skin.

  And yet … it would allow me to keep from crossing the final threshold that divided women from men. I would not be subject to the tides of fertility that Brother Yarit had described; I would not be transformed into an unfamiliar creature suited to the world of childbearing and nursemaiding.

  It would make bhazim more than a word I despised; something, perhaps, of value. I would be a thing apart, but that was already true.

  At last I spoke to Brother Yarit about it, hoping that the Sight might have afforded him a greater understanding of the Teardrop’s purpose in the year that had passed since he gave it to me.

  “No.” Brother Yarit shook his head when I asked him about it. “I wish it had, but no.” He paused. “You’re considering it?”

  I fidgeted. “Do you think I should do it?”

  “I cannot make that choice for you, Khai,” he said gently. “You had no voice in the decision to raise you as bhazim, and that cannot be undone. But this … this you must choose for yourself.”

  “Does everyone know about this, too?” I asked him, unable to keep a hint of bitterness from my tone.

  “No.” Brother Yarit understood. “No, only the senior brothers. And Brother Karal will have to be told if you decide to do it,” he added. Brother Karal had some knowledge of healing herb lore and a neat hand with a needle and thread; he was the one who patched our wounds and saw to it that they didn’t fester. “I wouldn’t trust the job to anyone else. But I’d very much prefer it went no further.” He ran a hand over his hair. “None of the brothers knows that the Teardrop was stolen from a member of the House of the Ageless, but it’s not exactly a safe item to have in your possession. Prince Elizar was, ah, considerably dismayed by the loss.”

  “Is your cousin in trouble?” To my chagrin, I realized I hadn’t even considered the possibility.

  “Amal would have been on our doorstep attempting the Trial of Pahrkun if he’d been caught,” he said dryly. “And wouldn’t that have posed me an interesting moral quandary. No, he’s fine, but—” He cut himself off.

  “But what?” I asked when it was apparent that he didn’t intend to finish the thought.

  Brother Yarit hesitated, clearly reluctant to tell me. “Someone else paid a price for it,” he admitted at length. “I learned some time ago that Prince Elizar had his chamberlain executed.”

  It shocked me. “Was the man guilty?”
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br />   “Only of failing to protect the prince’s collection,” he said. “It’s not an offense deserving of execution, but … nerves are strung tighter than an over-tuned harp in the House of the Ageless these days.”

  “Because of the rhamanthus seeds?”

  He nodded. “That, and the matter of succession. It has been thus for a very, very long time.”

  It reminded me that the world I was being prepared to enter was one wholly unfamiliar to me. “So it would be worth my life to be caught with the Teardrop, wouldn’t it?”

  Brother Yarit did not mince words. “Probably.”

  It was strange to think that an innocent man had died so that I might possess this gem for an unknown purpose, simply because Brother Yarit had Seen it in an unclear and imperfect vision. The knowledge made my heart ache and pricked my sense of honor. “I didn’t ask for this, Elder Brother. You have brought dishonor upon me.”

  “I’m sorry, Khai,” he said quietly to me. “It’s not a consequence I foresaw. All I know is that you’re meant to have it. I can only believe it is in the service of the Sight and that honor beyond honor of which Vironesh once spoke.”

  “Does it have anything to do with the prophecy?” I asked him. “Miasmus and the darkness that will one day rise in the west?”

  Again, he hesitated, his brow furrowing in consternation and genuine perplexity. “That’s not a question I can answer.”

  So it was possible, then. I wondered what would have happened if Brother Yarit had simply asked for the Teardrop, had told the prince in his capacity as the Seer that it was a necessary sacrifice. Likely it was a naive notion; likely there was a reason that Pahrkun the Scouring Wind had chosen a master thief to succeed Brother Saan as the Seer. And anyway, it was done. Whatever its ultimate purpose, the Teardrop would be safer hidden in my flesh than on my person.

  Brother Yarit was watching me.

  I made a decision. “I want to do it.”

  SIXTEEN

  Two days later, it was done.

  It hurt. It hurt quite a bit more than I’d anticipated. I’d sustained worse injuries while sparring, but one doesn’t feel pain as much when one’s blood is high. This was a measured and deliberate carving of my flesh.

  It took place outdoors in the protected gorge where the banked embers of Brother Drajan’s cookfire burned. Several of the senior brothers stood guard to ensure our privacy. I knelt on the ground beneath the bright sun, biting down on a strip of worn leather while Brother Karal made a careful incision between the cords at the back of my neck and slipped the Teardrop in place.

  “Am I doing this right?” he asked Brother Yarit.

  “Hell if I know,” Brother Yarit said. “Looks good to me.”

  “Very well.” Brother Karal swabbed the back of my neck. “I’m going to close it, then. Pinch the edges of the wound shut.”

  I clenched my teeth on the leather strip and let out my breath in a hiss as the needle bit into my flesh; once, twice, three times. Brother Karal sluiced my skin with a dipperful of water, swabbed it again, then slathered it with salve from a clay pot and bandaged it with a clean length of cloth.

  “Done,” he said. I felt at the back of my neck, fingers prodding at the bandage. Beneath the tender flesh, I couldn’t even feel the Teardrop. He swatted my hand away. “Leave it be, Khai.”

  Brother Yarit crouched before me, his fingers wet and red with my blood. “How do you feel?”

  It was a fair question. I’d just had the petrified sap of a living god sewn into my flesh. “Fine.” It seemed like I ought to feel something more powerful, some change within myself, but I didn’t. “I mean, it hurts, but … otherwise, I don’t feel any different.”

  “All right.” He nodded. “I’ll take that as a good thing.” Straightening, he gave everyone present a significant glance. “Remember, this never happened.”

  And that was that.

  No one commented on the bandage wrapped around my neck; injuries were commonplace. No doubt the younger brothers assumed I’d gotten it in the course of training with Vironesh, while Vironesh assumed the opposite to be true.

  I will own, it was strange knowing the Teardrop was there, even if I didn’t feel any different. I would find myself fingering the site without realizing I’d raised my hand, especially after the swelling went down and Brother Karal took out the stitches; reaching beneath my hair to finger the tender skin and the slight ridge of healing scar tissue, feeling for the faint bump of the luminescent amber Teardrop nestled in my flesh.

  A man had died because of it.

  I couldn’t leave it alone.

  After catching me at it for the third or fourth time, Brother Yarit summoned me to his chamber. “You’re developing a habit, kid,” he said bluntly to me. “You’ve got to stop. It’s a telltale.”

  Telltales gave away thieves, liars, and prisoners of war. I clasped my hands together in my lap. “I’m sorry.”

  Brother Yarit sighed. “Look, I get it. It’s … well, it’s got to be damned odd. But it’s done. So do us all a favor and forget it’s there.”

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  He shook his head. “You’ve got to do better than try, Khai. Forget it. Put it clean out of your thoughts. Forget it ever happened, forget what you know about how it came into your possession. Forget it.”

  I hesitated, and pulled my hair aside. “Tell me one thing, Elder Brother. What does it look like?”

  Brother Yarit peered at my nape. “It’s healing nice and clean. Brother Karal did a fine job.”

  “You can’t see it … glowing … or anything?” I pressed him.

  He laughed. “What, like your moment of khementaran is upon you?”

  “What?”

  He sobered. “You didn’t know? That’s what happens when it comes upon one of the House of the Ageless.” He touched the insides of his wrists, the hollow of his throat. “It’s the essence of Anamuht the Purging Fire that quickens the rhamanthus seeds and burns in the veins of the Sun-Blessed. They say you can see it glowing at the pulse-points when khementaran comes upon them.”

  “Oh.”

  Brother Yarit shrugged. “So the stories tell. But no, Khai. There’s nothing to see. It’s hidden. Safe. And if you can manage to forget about it like I asked, it will stay that way until the time comes.”

  I pricked up my ears. “What time might that be, Elder Brother?”

  He regarded me with a mixture of wry affection and the Seer’s obliqueness. “Tell me and we’ll both know. You’ve got a formidable will, kid. Can you manage to apply it to this task?”

  I saluted him. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Good.”

  Once I set my mind to it, it wasn’t as hard as I imagined. Brother Yarit was right: I had a formidable will and it was constantly being honed and challenged by Vironesh’s training. I concentrated on learning to channel Pahrkun’s wind at will and forced myself to forget about the Teardrop. I trained my hands not to reach for the back of my neck, and once my body learned to obey and abandon the impulse, my thoughts followed and the Teardrop ceased to plague me.

  Forget it’s there.

  Forget, forget it ever happened.

  I turned fourteen and encountered a spurt of growth, gaining several inches in what felt like weeks. It forced me to learn to concentrate anew, retraining these longer limbs, this elongated torso, building new lean muscle so that mind and body might work in effortless tandem. Vironesh was surprisingly sympathetic. To say he warmed to me would be an exaggeration, but he saw when I struggled with the ongoing changes in my body, and he developed a shrewd sense of when to press me and when to step backward and allow me time to adjust.

  He opened up a little.

  There were topics that were forbidden to me; this, he made clear. First and foremost of these was the poisoned Prince Kazaran, his Sun-Blessed charge. Vironesh gave me no insight into the profound relationship between a shadow and his charge. He spoke to me in the broadest possible terms of what life in the etern
ally complicated court of the House of the Ageless was like, preparing me for a vipers’ nest of intrigue, yet stressing that he knew nothing of what I might expect of life in the women’s quarter. He gave me no insight into what it was like to partake of the rhamanthus seeds and live for decades without aging, Anamuht’s fire coursing in one’s veins.

  Vironesh would not explain why he was proof against death-bladder poison and its ensuing Purple Death.

  Vironesh would not discuss the strange glittering scars on his cheeks.

  But there were things he deigned to discuss in time, giving in to my curiosity—and to be sure, that of the entire brotherhood—about his long tenure among the coursers of Obid. None of us could fathom what would cause a man of Zarkhoum to take to the sea in the service of a strange god.

  “Justice,” Vironesh said simply. “I hungered for it. Since I did not find it in Zarkhoum, I sought it elsewhere.”

  He told us of the code of Obid the Stern, which the coursers followed in meting out justice on the high seas; stark principles reflected in the black-and-white-striped sails that adorned their ships, striking terror into the hearts of pirates. It was hard to quarrel with most of their principles—though I had to fight the dormant urge to finger the back of my neck when Vironesh condemned theft—but Brother Yarit couldn’t resist taking issue with the coursers’ stance on intoxication.

  “Surely there’s no harm in indulging in the occasional flagon of date-palm wine or a pipe of hashish,” he remarked. “You yourself—”

  Vironesh’s jaw tightened. “Contrary to your belief, the coursers do not condemn the use of gahlba,” he said curtly. “One’s judgment is clearer when not hampered by useless emotions.”

  Brother Yarit opened his mouth to argue. I gave him a discreet hand sign begging him to stand down. He scratched his cheek. “If you say so, brother.”